Unspoken Understandings
by Lazerwolf314
Summary: Post-ep for "Yesterday" wherein Mark and Meredith share a connection that runs deeper than they can comprehend. Starts fluffy, might get twisty, might not. MerMark.
1. Chapter 1

_I don't know what it is about this show, but every single time I re-watch it, I end up with more story ideas than I can deal with._

 _Here's another post-ep for "Yesterday"_

 _AKA, no horrible thing with George (a moment/arc I always hated, given the_ _potential between Meredith and Mark), which I have done before in Tomorrow, but I'm struggling with the next chapter for that and this one was just fluffy enough to be fun to write._

 _Hearts always, A._

* * *

Addison doesn't show up.

Mark isn't really surprised, after all there's always a part of him that knows and expects to never be chosen, but he is surprised by how much it hurts. As the clock edges closer and closer to midnight, the knowledge that, once again, Addy has abandoned him in favor of Derek settles deep in his bones. It hurts, just like always, the realization he is and always will be second best, even though he should know better than to hope by now.

Hope has gotten him nowhere in life but scars on his heart and what could loosely be described as the beginnings of alcoholism.

Somewhere deep inside, the forgotten child he was is whispering _I told you so; we'll never be picked_.

He tells it quite empathetically to fuck off and takes another deep mouthful of scotch in an attempt to drown out his ever-present self loathing.

At his side, another empty shot glass clicks down on the bar top, and his attention is drawn back to the young intern next to him. As he watches, Meredith lines up her empty glass behind the three other empties and signals the bartender, Joe, for another.

"You getting your ducks in a row over there Grey?" he asks jokingly, forcing a lighthearted tone in his voice and trying to shake away the depressing mood that had settled around his shoulders.

Meredith snorts, amused, and tilts her head to study him. "I might have no control over anything else in my life right now, but at least I have some control over this tequila," she retorts coyly.

Mark laughs, and grins. "An argument could be made that, if you keep this up, tequila will soon have control over you."

Meredith shrugs with a laugh. "You're probably right," she admits, before picking up the new shot Joe places before her and slamming it back. With a shake of her head to fight off the burn, she adds the empty glass to her line. "But I don't really care."

"Oh Grey," Mark begins, something fond and warm lighting in his chest and beginning to chase away a few of his shadows, "I have a feeling this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

"Only if you keep up," Meredith shoots back, sliding a shot across the bar top until it settles next to the nearly empty glass of scotch in his hands.

"Ooh, are you trying to get me drunk?" Mark asks with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows.

"No, you're trying to get you drunk, you're just doing it too slow and I'm helping you out," Meredith tells him matter-of-factly, breezing over his flirtations with ease.

Mark opens his mouth to retort, but finds himself at a loss for words; the surgical intern is right. He wants to get drunk, to drown out the hurt he's allowed himself to feel once again because he should've known better. He wants to lose himself in the fog, if only for the night.

As he lifts the shot to his lips, Meredith adds, "besides, we're the Dirty Mistresses; we should have each other's backs."

Hesitating, Mark looks at the spitfire next to him and sees a darkness and vulnerability shimmering in her light eyes, a darkness he understands. A vulnerability he feels but rarely shows. "That we are Meredith, that we are," he murmurs, before sucking down the alcohol and relishing the trail of fire it leaves.

For a long, humming second, they study each other, able to see some of the shadows in the other's eyes since they match their own. Then Meredith's mask comes back up and her expression turns amused.

"Then let's drink," she proclaims definitively, watching Mark's walls come up and a mischievous twinkle light in his eyes.

There's a strange ease in which the two falls into conversation, as though they had been friends for years, instead of having met just that morning, but it doesn't scare them. They embrace it, not caring if some vulnerability leaks through as the night goes on and the alcohol seeps in, because of the understanding that hovers between the two. It should be concerning at how quickly they bond, but they are both too tired, and later, too drunk to care.

When closing rolls around, they lean heavily against each other for support as they stumble out of the bar to the cab Joe had called for them, Meredith's keys held safely behind the bar for when she returns the next day. Giggling like children at a joke both of them have already forgotten, they slip into the waiting cab, Mark giving the address to his hotel after a quick and mostly wordless conversation with Meredith.

The ride passes quickly as Meredith stumbles her way through yet another story of her life before medical school, smiling against Mark's shoulder from where she leans. He answers with stories of his own, wild tales of travel and debauchery filling the space between them. In low tones, they banter back and forth, words slurred but meaning generally understood. It's easy, conversation flowing like water, and it doesn't break when the cab finally pulls up in front of the swankiest hotel on the waterfront, Mark tossing a handful of bills to the driver, before sliding out after Meredith.

Twining arms around each other's waists, they move through the lobby as quietly as they can, Meredith muffling errant snickers in the fabric of Mark's coat and Mark ducking his head to keep his comments and laughter pressed into Meredith's ears.

When they finally make it to his room, it takes a few fumbled passes with the swipe card before the door grants their entrance and they move into the dark space, separating just long enough to toe off boots and shuck their way out of their jackets, tossing them further into the gloom. Neither bother trying to find a light switch, letting themselves stumble toward the bed with the weak city lights coming through the window guide them.

Falling onto the mattress in a tangle of limbs and drunken laughter, Mark rolls them until they're in the center of the bed, Meredith perched precariously on top of them.

"Well," Mark starts, tongue poking out from between lips as his eyes rake up and down Meredith's form. "What shall we do now?"

Something hungry leaps into Meredith's eyes as she stares down at him, the animal in him surging to life at the sight of it.

"I can think of several ideas," she whispers, leaning down to murmur in his ear. Heat flashes between them, searing its way through a layer of alcohol and when Meredith sits back, Mark is breathing hard, eyes glassy.

"You'll get no complaints me," he says roughly, the clever glint in Meredith's eyes doing something strange to his insides.

"Good."


	2. Chapter 2

As he surfaces from a sleep filled with dreams that dance just out of reach when he tries to recall them, Mark reaches out blindly for the warm body he knows instinctively should be next to him, only to grasp at cold air and empty sheets. As he digs his way out of the tangle of bedspread and pillows and tendrils of sleep, he knows before he even opens his eyes that he is alone in the hotel room.

Meredith is gone.

And long gone from what the coolness of the space at his side tells him.

Mark is shocked by how much her vanishing act stings, a sharp and bloodless slice across his heart.

He didn't figure she'd be so ruthless.

This is something Addison would do... Addison had done.

Clever green eyes flash through his mind, dragging with them a train wreck of a headache, the lingering taste of old alcohol, and another quick swirl of hurt.

For a brief moment, Mark had allowed himself to think Meredith was different.

Yet, here was, once again, abandoned in a hotel room with nothing but memories and searing hangover. He feels like kicking himself; hates how he let the feisty intern creep her way past his defenses.

And with a heavy hangover unlike one he's experienced in a long while, that'll teach him to drink tequila; he knows better. Or thought he did.

With a self-depreciating grunt, Mark rolls over, fully prepared to stuff his head back under the pillow and sleep away the hangover and the hurt that has come at him all too frequently the past twenty-four hours. That'll teach him to continue to have hope.

Instead, he freezes at the sight that meets him. Confusion springs to life and quickly goes to war with curiosity and after a moment, he sits up, wincing at the heavy throb of pain deep in his skull. It takes a moment to find his balance when he finally stands, and Mark curses tequila and those clever green eyes under his breath, but he moves slowly to the room service cart that sits innocuously just inside the door. Moving away from the bed has the last tangle of sheets falling away and the cool air against bare flesh raises gooseflesh.

As he gets closer and weaves his way through his abandoned articles of clothing that are still strewn across the floor, the scent of coffee and bacon invades his nose and hunger sparks to life instantly, chasing away the lurking bits of nausea. On the cart is a tray covered with a silver dome, a pot of coffee still emanating steam, a tall glass of water, and a folded piece of paper.

An unfamiliar feeling unfurls in his chest, low and warm, and Mark reaches tentatively for the paper. Unfolding it gently, Mark skims the printed words quickly, unaware of the small smile that blooms to life on his lips.

 _Mark,_

 _Sorry I had to bolt, but I had an early shift and you sleep like the dead. Seriously, I tried to wake you, but you either ignored me or were too passed out. Lightweight._

 _I ordered you food, because you'll probably need it and I was hungry, and the front desk let me charge it to your credit card, so eat it or don't, it's up to you._

 _There's a lot of things I could say, but they don't belong written on a piece of paper for you to find in the morning so I'll just say bye. For now I suppose, that is up to you._

 _\- Meredith, the much more attractive Dirty Mistress_

And scrawled under her signature is a phone number. That unfamiliar feeling grows as he reads it and the last bit draws a laugh from him.

Setting the note to the side, Mark lifts the silver dome and grins happily at the sight of the bacon, eggs, and toast that fill the plate. There's an empty space where some of the food had been nabbed by Meredith, but more than enough left. Grabbing one of the slices of toast, he munches on it as he drags the cart further into the room so he can sit on the bed and dig in.

As he eats, Mark finds himself lost in his thoughts and conflicted.

There's a plane ticket with his name on it booked for New York in three days. His plan had been to spend everyone one of those days to convince Addison to come back with him, show her he was serious, but after what had happened the day before, he finds himself standing on shaky grounds.

" _Your marriage is over Addison, all you have to do is admit it then you can come back home with me,_ " his words to her in the elevator just last evening come back to him in a flash and along with it, comes the wave of defeat. She hadn't shown. And now, Mark wasn't sure what to do.

He hadn't expected to run into the other half of the Dirty Mistresses, and he sure as hell didn't expect to like her. Not only like her, but Mark was able to talk to her, freely and without calculation. Just talk about anything, which they certainly had from what he can remember between the haze of scotch and tequila and laughter.

He doesn't like where his mind is going. And hates even more that he does.

Well shit.

...

Meredith scrambles into the intern locker room in a breathless rush, studiously ignoring the curious glances aimed her way. As she opens her locker, she sees the moment Christina realizes that she's wearing the same clothes as the day before and can all but feel Alex's smirk at her back.

"Don't start," she warns, spinning to jab a finger in Karev's direction, before whirling back to change and hop into her scrubs as quickly as possible, ignoring Alex's snickers and shutting her eyes for a split second to fight off the spins that come with the sudden twist. While she may not be nursing the worst hangover of her life, that position is still held solidly by that one night in Prague with Saddie all those years ago, she's definitely a little off balance, and for more reasons than just drinking.

Reasons she doesn't have time to examine at the moment.

Izzie rounds the corner and stops to study her roommate, George skulking at her heels.

"You didn't come home last night," George states softly, the accusing barb in his tone catches Meredith by surprise.

But she's in a rush and doesn't have time to analyze it. "I thought you guys were tired of me bringing guys home, so I didn't bring a guy home," she fires back as she pulls her scrub shirt over her head.

Christina laughs and chimes in, "ooh you dirty whore," she snipes good-naturedly.

As Meredith snorts and looks down to clip her pager to the waist band of her scrub pants, she misses the look that passes between George and Izzie and the crestfallen expression that paints George's features.

"I thought you were done picking up guys in bars," Izzie tries, still glancing at George with sympathy as her friend busies himself by attempting to look something up in his notebook, shoulders hunched up around his ears in an unconscious attempt to protect himself from any more hurt.

"And I thought rounds started thirty seconds ago," Bailey's voice comes like an angry shot from the doorway and they all jump. Framed in the doorway, arms crossed and irritation painted plain as day in every aspect of her stance, the interns hop to attention and scramble out of the room, conversation halted until another time.

* * *

 _A/N: I guess this is going somewhere._

 _Hearts always, A._


	3. Chapter 3

Mark gives serious thought to returning to the hospital again today between bites of food, swigs of coffee and water, and the constant throb of a headache lurking just behind his eyes. As he rolls the idea around in his mind, it's uncomfortable knowing how far off its roots his plan has been shaken.

Sure, it'd been a half-baked plan in the first place, brought about by the near crushing emptiness and loneliness that had taken up permanent residence behind his walls since the abandonment of Addison and Derek, his only family, but it'd been a plan. And all it had taken was a quick rescheduling of a few appointments and he had been on the plane to Seattle.

The cut across his cheekbone stings in the light of day, with no alcohol to numb it, a constant reminder of what he's lost so far. Addison's blatant rejection from the night before feels a bit like an angry road rash wrapped around the heart he's worked so hard to protect and hide. Derek's angry parting words don't help, dancing around his head like taunting birds trying to tear away strips of his flesh.

" _How come you can forgive her and not me?_ "

" _I haven't forgiven her and with you, I have no obligation to try_."

( _There's a piece of Mark that hates Derek now, hates him in a blinding way that doesn't make a lick of sense… except it does. Derek is one of the only two people in the world who knows just how much Mark's chosen family means to him, after the neglect from his parents, and yet, the dark-haired neurosurgeon had turned his back and walked away. Sure, Mark had fucked up, but wasn't family supposed to give family a chance?_ )

Those pesky self-loathing and self-destructive tendencies he had told Meredith about urge him to head to the hospital, to see his best friend, his brother in everything but blood, and let Derek spew even more vicious hatred, hatred Mark so rightfully deserves. Because at least than Derek will be talking to Mark again, something he wants so badly, it's terrifying. The devils are telling him to go in and find Addison, even after she had once again picked Derek, because Addison had been his, even only for a moment, and he wanted her back.

And underneath it all is the faintest whisper _Meredith will be there_.

For once in his life, he smartly ignores the devils.

Instead, he decides to hop in the shower before he'll crawl back in bed and sleep off the rest of the hangover, wanting to think things over with a clear head. Besides, like he had said yesterday, the rain does make him want to spend all day in bed. Although he had meant with another warm body, Meredith's in particular when he had been flirting, there's something satisfying and easy about the idea of sleeping through the rain.

( _And if he wants just another minute, just one damn moment, before having to face the fact that he might never get his brother back, that the woman he loves will not choose him, well then, who's around that can blame him?_ )

Giving his head a quick shake in an attempt to clear away the dark thoughts, he regrets it immediately when his head spins; the creeping hangover been easy to forget while stationary and eating and Mark groans, dropping his head to his hands as he waits for the vertigo to cease. Even though his stomach does a quick roll and the smell of alcohol seems to radiate from his skin, Mark can't bring himself to even consider regretting drinking as much as he had the night before.

Meredith had been right; he had been trying to get drunk. He just hadn't been expecting to find not only a drinking partner but, what he might loosely call now, a friend.

" _I just saw my father for the first time in twenty years_ ," Meredith's voice drifts through his head with a memory, the dead tone mismatched to the words that should hold emotion.

Perhaps Mark isn't the only one hurting today. He suspects he also isn't alone in the dark either.

When the vertigo finally clears, Mark sighs and lifts his head.

Pushing the room service cart to the door and carefully moving it out into the hallway, Mark hangs the do-not-disturb sign on the doorknob and retreats to the bathroom, ignoring his clothing that is still strewn about the floor for the time being. The shower jumps to life at his touch and within moments he's under the hot spray, scrubbing away the lingering scent of scotch and tequila that seems to cling to his skin.

As he does, flashes from the night before, fuzzy around the edges but filled with light laughter and companionship, circle in his head. It brings a smile to his lips,

Eventually, when the bathroom is thick with steam and nearly suffocatingly warm, Mark leaves the warmth and towels off, leaving his hair dripping. He doesn't have the energy to deal with at the moment. Emerging, towel slung low on his hips, he frowns at his abandoned clothing and sighs. While he may sometimes feel like chaos embodied, he dislikes disorder when it can be avoided.

Gathering up articles of clothing, it's only when he finds a small black sock that definitely is not his tucked underneath the corner of the bed and can only locate one of his much larger grey ones, that he starts laughing. The pieces fall together in his mind.

Sitting on the side of the bed, he picks up the piece of paper he's kept and carefully punches in the phone number, still snickering as he brings the phone to his ear.

" _Hello?_ "

"Grey, did you steal one of my socks?"

...

Rounds fly by quickly, Bailey moving at an irritation fueled pace that forces her gaggle of interns to scramble after her, Meredith trailing at the back. Because of it, she isn't surprise when she's assigned to scut. As the rest of the interns scuttle away to their assigned tasks, George shooting her one last unreadable look, Meredith slinks to the main nurses desk under Bailey's watchful eye to collect charts that need updating.

Finding a quiet hallway, she settles herself on one of the empty beds that line the hall, spreading her work around her and beginning to pick her way through. The headache has faded to the dull thump of a base drum against her temples and it's easy enough to ignore as she focuses in on the pages before her.

She gets lost easily in the endless and mind numbing act of adding notes to charts and making sure everything is filed properly. So involved, in fact, that when the phone in her pocket chirps, Meredith starts, a slash of pen skidding across the page. Wincing at the sight of the harsh smear of black, she sets the chart and pen aside and digs the ringing phone out of her lab coat, cursing herself for not leaving it in her locker like usual and praying Bailey doesn't catch her.

With a grateful sigh at the silence that meets her ears when she flips the device open, she lifts the phone to her ear.

"Hello?"

" _Grey, did you steal one of my socks_?"

At the sound of his voice and the words he says, Meredith feels a faint blush creep across her cheeks. Closing her eyes, she feels a small twinge of embarrassment, but quickly shrugs it off, deciding to own it.

"Yep; I couldn't find my other one and yours was just laying there, begging to be taken. And I needed a sock," she retorts, leaning back and getting comfortable, already feeling lighter.

When Mark's amused hoot of laughter fills her ears, a smile graces her lips.

" _It's not the only thing begging to be taken by you_ ," he purrs and Meredith is forced to stifle her giggles in the sleeve of her lab coat.

"Well played," she answers between breaths.

" _Thank you_ ," Mark replies smoothly, before continuing. " _And Gray, your sock was under the bed._ "

"Oops?" is all Meredith can offer, blatantly unapologetic.

Mark laughs again, sounding free and light.

" _Well, you know what this means Grey; I definitely need to see you again, especially since I'm now holding your sock for ransom_ ," Mark tells her, something mischievous creeping in his voice.

"Are you really Sloan?" Meredith fires back, struggling to keep her own amusement out of her voice.

" _I am, and, if you ever want to see this sock again, you'll meet me at the hotel for eight_ ," Mark responds, the fake threat coming apart under Meredith's snickering.

"What if I'm the one holding your sock hostage?" Meredith fires back, easily settling into the banter.

" _Well then, I propose a trade, sock for sock. Seems fair._ "

Meredith ponders this for a second; this could be so wrong, her and Mark and whatever this strange connection was, but she needed to move on and so did he, so perhaps, for now, it could be right. After all, she had left him her number with the vague hope he would call. "I can agree to those terms," she answers finally.

" _Excellent, I'll see you then. Now, time to spend all day in bed_ ," Mark tells her, implication and innuendo falling easily from his tongue.

"No need to brag Sloan, it's unbecoming."

" _Haven't you learned by now Grey, nothing about me is unbecoming_ ," Mark crows.

Snorting, Meredith shakes her head in mild incredulity. "I have to go back to work. Goodbye," she proclaims, shutting her phone on his answering goodbye and holding the device against her chest for a long moment, feeling warm.

After a long second, she shakes her head and tucks her phone away, picking back up the chart she had been working on and diving back into the work, not noticing the shadow at the end of the hallway walk away.

* * *

 _A/N: Wow, I'm overwhelmed by the response to this. It was only ever intended to be a quick lil fluff piece but here we go I guess :)_

 _Hearts always, A._


End file.
